The TED Talk I chose to write about was John Green’s “The nerd’s guide to learning everything online”. This talk explains the unconventional ways many individuals can take to learn new skills and acquiring knowledge online, whether it is from social media sites like reddit, or even everyday youtube videos, like CrashCourse or SciShow videos from John Green and his brother’s youtube channels which both having a massive audience of over 11 million followers together!

John Green felt that the conventional education system felt like a consistent series of hurdles that he was forced to jump directly over and over to achieve adulthood, which he was not fond of because he saw many adults having a very sad, boring life, having to wake up early, and work strenuous hours.

His outlook on education was changed when he attended a small boarding school in the tenth grade. He started to learn because he found the class engaging engaging, because he found himself in a community of learners, who celebrated intellectualism, and engagement.

John also found out that he could learn new things in very unconventional ways, like whn he had a crush on a girl who liked a book that he was studying in high school, so he learned it in depth to have something in common with her.

He then previewed many of his favourite videos on YouTube that are parts of communities of learners that have over 500,000 views per video. He explains how the YouTube platform is used for communities of learners for intellectual engagements that are proven to have a positive impact in sharing knowledge.

After watching all TED talks, I chose to write about John Green’s talk because I found it the most interesting and it was in common with my views and opinions towards the matter. I believe that although conventional teaching is fundamental, there still needs to be a source of places to engage the learners a lot more and keep them excited to learn. I can relate because I have learned a great amount of information form YouTube channels such as CodysLab, Veritasium, MinutePhysics and even John Green’s channels SciShow and CrashCourse, because I am interested in the topics that they make videos about.

Overall, I agree with this talk because nowadays there are so many platforms online that are meant specifically for educating audiences, and YouTube is just the surface. Platforms such as Khan Academy, and Code Academy are solely dedicated towards teaching anything from Mathematics at a middle school level to advanced computer programming in several languages.

However, there is a slight issue that I found with the talk. Green did not mention that there are countless unreputable sources or educational videos that claim to be legitimate but in fact are not. This is especially evident on YouTube, where anyone can upload videos without any certification for publishing videos on any subject. This can lead to a wide spread of misinformation, especially if a YouTube creator with millions of followers is the one who shares it.

Some questions I was left with after seeing this talk was how could one distinguish what information is indeed legitimate and true? Reputability of the individuals post would play a role, but cannot be solely dependant on that factor because as stated before, YouTube and and other sites like Reddit do not require any certification in the field a user may talk about, because it is meant as service that is accessible to all users.

Finally, I would definitely recommend this talk to a friend, it is a very unique perspective that i find interesting because shows how although the internet may not be seen as a conventional way to learn new things, it is very possible, as made evident by the success of Mr. Green’s writing and YouTube channels.